t8 b5 j azzarello notes on may 23 hearing fdr- comments on transcript and handrwitten notes212

8/14/2019 T8 B5 J Azzarello Notes on May 23 Hearing Fdr- Comments on Transcript and Handrwitten Notes212

1/68

Whi le Mr. Flaherty was briefing me, I watched as a

large commercial jet f lew into the second tower of the Wor ldTrade Center. At this point things began to happen quickly. Ionce more returned to the conference room and informed theminister of what ha d happened an d ended th e meet ing. I receiveda telephone call from the CEO of United Airlines, Jack Goodman,tell ing me that one of United's fl ights was missing. I thencalled Don Carty, the CEO of American Airlines, and asked him tosee if American Airlines could account for all of i ts aircraft .

Mr . Flaherty reported to me that Jane Garvey had phoned toreport that the CEO of De lta Airlines had called the FAA andsaid it could not yet account for all of its a i r c ra f t .

During this t ime, my office activated the Department ofTranspor ta t ion 's cr is is management center, which was located onthe 8th floor at that t ime of the Department of Transportationheadquarters, and provides for senior DOT personnel to conductsurge operat ions in a coordinated manner.

By this t ime, my office had contacted the White House.A brief moment later, th e White House called my chief of staffan d asked if I could come to the White House and operate f romthat location. I decided that, given the nature of the attackand the request, that I should be at the White House directlyproviding the pres ident and the vice pres ident wi th informat ion.

When I got to the White House, i t was being evacuated.I met brief ly wi th Richard Clark, a National Secur i ty Counci lstaff member, who had no new information. Then th e SecretService escorted me down to the Presidential EmergencyOperat ions Center, o therwise known as the PEOC. I establishedcontact on two lines, one with my chief of staff at theDepartment of Transportation, and the second with Monty Belger,the acting deputy administrator of the FAA, and Jane Garvey,both of whom were in the FAA operations center.

l

And as the minutes p assed, the develo ping pictu re fromai r traffic control towers an d radar screens became increasinglymore alarming. Some aircr aft could not be contacted. While ona normal da y that may be just a communications snafu, we werefaced with trying to quickly sort ou t minor problems from


2/68

airports, and ultimately a nationwide ground stop of all

aircraft for all locations, regardless of destination.^

G ' ? y A

Withi n a few minutes, American Flight 77 crashed intothe Pentagon. At this time, as we discussed the situation withth e North American Aerospace Defense commander and his staff, weconsidered implementing an emergency system of coordinated airtraffic management to allow maximum use for defensiveact ivi t ies .

It was clear that we had to clear the air space as soonas possible to stop any further attacks and ensure domestic airspace was available for emergency and defensive use. And so atapproximately 9:45 a.m., less than one hour after I had firstbeen notified of an airplane crash in New York, I gave the FAAth e final order for all civil aircraft to land at the nearestairport as soon as possible. I t was the first shutdown of civilaviation in the history of the United States.

Within minutes, air t raff ic controllers throughout thenation ha d directed 70 0 domestic and international flights toemergency but safe landings. Within another 50 minutes, airtraffic controllers, working with skilled fl ight crews, madesure another 2800 airplanes returned safely to the ground.

By shortly after noon, less than four hours after

th e first attack, U.S. air space was empty of all aircraftexcept military and medical traffic . A total of approximat ely4500 aircraft were landed without incident in highly stressfulconditions. Additionally, all international inbound flightswere diverted from U.S. air space and U.S. airports.

Unfortunately, during this t ime we also learned thatUnited Flight 93 crashed in Stony Creek Township, Pennsylvania . /As America knows, but it is important to keep repeating, thataircraft never reached the terrorists ' target due to the heroicactions taken by the passengers and crew on United Flight 93.

A question has been asked whether or not there isevidence that other hijackings and attacks were prevented by theactions that were taken that day. There are classified reports,


3/68

MR. HAMILTON : Mr. Secretary, we're very pleased to

have yo u here this morning. I understand your t ime is short an dyou'll only be able to spend a few minutes with us . We'regrateful for the t ime that you're able to make availabl e. Itmight very wel l be that we'll have some questions that we wouldwant to submit to you in writing subsequently.

MR. MINETA : And I will submit those to the Commissionin wri t ing.

MR . HAMILTON: We thank you for that. I wanted tofocus just a moment on the Presidential Emergency OperatingCenter. You were there for a good part of the day. I think youwere there wi th the vice pres ident . And when you had that ordergiven, I think it was by the president, that authorized theshooting down of commercial aircraft that were suspected to becontrol led by terror is ts , were you there when that order wasgiven?

MR . MINETA: No, I was not. I was made aware of i tduring the t ime that the airplane coming into the Pentagon.There was a young man who had come in and said to the vice /presi dent, "The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 milesout." And when it got down to, "The plane is 10 miles out," th eyoung man also said to the vice president, "Do the orders sti l lstand?" And the vice president turned and whipped his neck

around and said, "Of course the orders sti l l stand. Have youheard anything to the contrary?" Well, at the time I didn't knowwhat al l that meant. And --

MR . HAMILTON: The flight you're referring to is the --

MR. MINETA: Th e flight that came into the Pentagon.

MR. HAMILTON: The Pentagon, yeah.

MR. MINETA: And so I was not aware that thatdiscussion had already taken place. But in l istening to theconversation between th e young man and the vice pres ident , thenat th e time I didn't really recognize th e significance of that.


4/68

had to, with the vice president, go through the Pentagon to

check that out.

MR . HAMILTO N: Let me see if I understand. The planethat was headed toward the Pentagon and was some miles away,there was an order to shoot that plane down.

MR. MINETA: Well, I don't know that specifical ly, butI do know that the airplanes were scrambled from Langley or fromNorfolk, the Norfolk area. But I did not know about th e ordersspecifically other than listening to that other conversat ion.

MR. HAMILTO N: But there very clearly was an order toshoot commercial aircraft down.

MR. MINETA: Subsequently I found that out.

MR. HAMILTON: With respect to Flight 93, what type ofinformation were you and the vice president receiving about thatfl ight?

MR. MINETA: The only information we had at that pointwas when it crashed.

MR. HAMILTON: I see . You didn ' t know beforehand aboutthat airplane.

MR. MINETA: I d id not.

MR. HAMILTON: And so there was no specific order thereto shoot that plane down.

h


5/68

MR. ROEMER: Nice to see you, Mr. Secretary, and nice

to see you feeling bet ter and getting around as well , too.

I want to follow up on what happened in thePresidential Emergency Operations Center and try to understandthat day a l i t t le bit better. You said, if I understo od youcorrectly, that you were not in the room; you were obviouslycoming from the Department of Transporta tion, where you had beenbusy in a meet ing in official business, but you had not been inthe room when th e decision wa s made -- to what yo u inferred wasa decision made to attempt to shoot down Flight 77 befo re itcrashed into the Pentagon. Is that correct?

MR . MINETA: I didn't know about the order to shootdown. I arrived at the PEOC at about 9:20 a.m. And thepresident was in Florida, and I believe he was on his way toLouisiana at that point when the conversation that went onbetween the vice president and the president and the staff that

th e president had with him.

MR. ROEM ER: So when you arrived at 9:20, how muchlonger was it before you overh eard the conversation betwee n theyoung man and the vice president saying, "Does the order sti l lstand?"

MR . MINETA: Probably about five or s i x minutes .

MR. ROE MER : So about 9:25 or 9:26. And your inferencewas that th e vice president snapped hi s head around an d said,"Yes, the order sti l l stands." Why did you infer that that wasa shoot-down?

MR. MINETA: Just by the nature of all the events going onthat day, the scrambling of the aircraft and, I don't know; Iguess, just being in the militar y, you do start thinking aboutit , an intuitive reaction to certain statements being made.

MR. ROE MER: Who was the young man with the vicepresident?

MR. MINETA: Frankly, I don't recall .


6/68

MR. MINET A: Dick was in the Situation Room.

MR. ROEMER: So there was the Situation Room makingdecisions about what wa s going to happen on shootdowns --

MR. MINETA: I don't be l i eve they were

MR . ROEMER: -- as well as the PEOC?

MR. MINETA: I don't bel i eve they were making anydecisions. I think they were more information-gathering fromvarious agencies .

MR . ROEMER: Could i t have been in the Si tuat ion Roomwhere somebody in the Situation Room recommended the shoot-downand the vice pres ident a greed to that?

MR . MINETA: Commissioner Roemer, I would assume that

decision of that nature would have had to be made at a muchhigher level than the people who were in the Situation Room.

MR. ROEMER: So take me through that. The SituationRoom is monitoring the daily minute-by-minute events an d theyfind out that Flight 77 is headed to the Pentagon. Somebody'sgot to be getting that information. The Situation Room is thencommunicating wit h the PEOC and saying, "We've got another

flight that 's on its way toward the Pentagon. Here are theoptions." Then the vice president talks to the president andsays, "Here are the options; we have a shoot-downrecommendation. Do you agre e, Mr. President? " Is that whathappens?

MR. MINETA: Again, that would be speculat ion on mypart as to what was happening on that day, so I just wouldn't beable to really answer that -- on that inquiry.

MR. ROEMER: I know, because you had been conductingoff ic ia l business , and I'm sure yo u were hurr iedly on your wa yover there.

MR . MINETA: As I was l istening --


7/68

that point on Air Force One, how a decision is made to shoot

down a commercial airliner.

And then would you say -- let's say we're trying to puttha t part of the puzzle together. Then would your inference betha t they scrambled the jets to shoot down the commercialairliner, it failed, and the commercial airliner thereforecrashed into the Pentagon, the jets were not able to get therein time to succeed in a mission that they'd been tasked to do?

MR . MINETA: I 'm not sure that the aircraft that werescrambled to come up to the DC area from Norfolk were underorders to shoot the airplane down. As I said, I just --

M R. ROEMER: But i t was an inference on your part.

MR . MINETA: It was an inference, without a doubt. Andthat ' s why, in thinking about the United plane that went down in

Pennsylvania, the question that arose in my mind --

MR. ROEMER: Right away was "Was that shot down?" Anddid you ever get an answer to that?

MR . MINETA: Yes, sir. The vice president and I talkedabout that . We then made the inquiry of the Department ofDefense. They then go t back to us saying, "No, it was not our

a i rcraf t . "

MR . ROEMER: No shots were fired and no effort was madeto shoot that down.

MR. MINETA: That's correct .

MR. KEAN: I' m going to go to another questioner.

MR. ROEMER: Thank you.

MR. KEAN: Th e secretary's time is limited.Commissioner Lehman.

MR . LEHMAN: Mr. Secretary, I have one question, and


8/68

your responsibilities, such as that subject, was adequate before

9/11? If not, have measures been taken to see that you areprovided with the best possible product on a daily basis as tothreats to the broad range of transportation assets under yourpurview? Could you comment on before and after?

MR. MINETA: Well , I do get a dai ly brief ing, intel ligencebriefing. And I did during that time period, prior to the llthof September and subsequent to the llth of September. Andthere's no doubt that the nature of the intelligence data hasimproved.

And so -- but again, there was nothing in thoseintelligence reports that would have been specific to anythingthat happened on the l l th of September . There was nothing inthe preceding time period about aircraft being used as a weaponor of any other terrorist types of activities of that nature.And so but I do get brief ings, and I think that since thel l th of September, 2001, the nature of the briefings haveimproved.

MR. LEHMAN: Just to follow up, Mr. Secretary, giventhe fact that there were, in the preceding couple of years,about half a dozen novel s and movies about hijackings being usedas weapons and the fact that there were reports floating aroundin the intelligence community, did you personally think that

that was a possi bilit y, that it could have happened? Or when ithappened, did it just take you totally by surprise? Becauseyesterday we had testimony from the former FAA administratorthat, in effect, i t never entered her mind.

MR. MINETA: Well, I would have to, again, say that Ihad no thought of the airplane being used as a weapon. I thinkou r concentration was more on hijackings. And most of thehijackings, as they occur in an overseas setting, or thehijacking, if it were to be a domestic one, was for the personto take over th e aircraft, to have that aircraft transport them fto some other place. But I don' t think we ever thought of an ~ ( f \ , Q ( J \ r \ lairplane being used as a missi le" ~ ~ "


9/68

When I first saw the headline i t occurred to me thatmaybe I had at tended a different meeting yesterday than TheWashington Post repor ters and headl ine wri ters had a t tended.But I hope th e Post will see fit to prominently correct thatheadline which is quite erroneous.

MR. KEAN: Thank you very much. I would certainlyagree.

I would like to have Major General Craig McKinley,commander, 1st Air Force, Continental U .S. NORAD, hererepresent ing NORAD.

GEN. MCKINLEY: Governor Kean, Congressman Hamilton an dmembers of the committee, thank you for the opportunity toappear before you today on behalf of the combatant commander,Uni ted Sta tes Northern Command and North American Aerospace

Defense Command, to provide testimony on the events surroundingthe events of September llth, 2001, when our nation was attackedfrom within by foreign terrorists using commercial aircraft asweapons of mass dest ruct ion.

It is an honor to represent the thousands of men andwomen from the Air Nat ional Guard, the active duty forces an dthe Air Force R eserv es s t i l l serving around the clock defending

America from further attacks in support of the NorthAmerican

Aerospace Defense Command. I pers onall y was inside the Pentagonon September llth, and I perso nally know what i t feels l ike tobe attacked by hostile forces. Although over 18 months havepassed since that tragic day, our vigilance remains focused. Wehave flown almost 30,000 airborne sorties in support ofOperat ion Noble Eagle in the cont inenta l Uni ted Sta tes a lone.

Every day Americans and Canadians work side by side inNORAD to defend North America . We have forged unprecedentedrelationships with in the U.S. government, with federal agenciesto strengthen ou r abili ty to detect an d defend against furtherattempts to harm our nation from the air. We are now patte rnedwith the new United States North Command to extend and perfectou r mission in both homeland defense as well as civil support


10/68

First Air Force is a subordinate command of Air Combat

Command, and is responsible to the North American AerospaceDefense Commander for the execution of the air defense missionto protect o ur nation. First Air Force, as NORAD ' s continental ^United States NORAD region, is responsible for the air defenseof the continental United States under the NORAD agreements.

J L -

/^-^lOO^Sd

T VI personally took command of 1st Air Force in the rf/\l U

and then became the joint force air component commander forGeneral Eberhardt . This was 11 months after the attacks. I ampleased to say today that when I saw the nature of yourquestions, t hat I asked General Eberhardt 's permission, andreceived i t , to invi te Major General Retired Larry Arnold, thepast commander of 1st Air Force, and the commander on the day ofthe attacks, that led the command through those trying daysduring an d after the event . He is with us today, and hasvolunteered to be part of this commission's hearings. I also

asked for probably the best subject matter expert I could findon the chronology, the series of events that is so vi ta l to thiscommission, to be with us today with your concurrence to walk usthrough the NORAD timeline.

I also have with me today Major Don Arias to show youth e human nature of this . Don's broth er, Adam, wa s killed inth e South Tower 2. He was talking to his brother at 8:59 on the

llth of September, '01, and Mr. Arias is our public affairsofficer. Please stand up, Don.

I' d like to thank the Commission staff, especial lyMiles Kara, for his help in preparin g for this. The committeehas posed many questions regarding the events surrounding the9/11 attacks. Our intention is to provide the chronology firstt o th e events l ead ing"up t o S e p t e m b e r I l t h 7 a s w e l l a s t a k i n g 'your questions to give you a detailed look at how NORAD'sresponse was made on 9/11, and any subsequent questions you mayhave on our posture since. Mr. Commissioner, that concludes myformal statement. The rest will be provid ed for the record.And, with your indulgence, sir, I would like Colonel Scott(ret.), Alan Scott , to walk you through the t imeline.


11/68

only thing I lay claim to is having studied all of the attacks

and how they are inter woven together. This was not a linearsequence of events where one at tack began and ended and then asecond attack began and ended. This was a coordinated, well-planned attack. We had mult iple airplanes in the air. The fogand friction of war was evidence everyw here in the country, bothon the civil side as well as the milita ry side. And thishopeful ly wil l show you how those interwoven events came about.

I will tell you the times on this chart come from ourlogs_. The time on the chart is the time that 's in the log. Itmay not be the exact time the event happened. It may be thetime when th e log-keeper was advised or became aware of theevent.

The first thing that happened in the morning related tothe events at 9:02, or I'm sorry 8:02 a.m., Eastern StandardTime, is when American Airlines 11 took off out of Boston.

American Airlines 11 was a 767, and it was headed, I beli eve, toLo s Angeles. Fourteen minutes later, also coming out of BostonLogan, United Airlines 175, a 757, also headed to Los Angeles,took off out of Boston, and initially took roughly the sameground track as American 11 . Three minutes later, AmericanAirlines 77 took off out of Dulles here in Washington, alsoheaded to Los AnaeJLe_s, and also a 757, and proceeded westbound

fixrst three airplanes ar e J

,irfborne together. The first time" tha\ anything untoward, and'this was gleaned from FAA response, thjat anything out of theordinary happened was at : k O , when th/e electronic transponder

American Airlines'IT" blinked off d/r you will, just^sappeared from the screen. Obviiwfsly the terrorists turned

thrE>-tJiansponder off, and_Jia-trairplane, although it did notdisappear FrcMbh-eTraoTarscope, i t became a much, much mo redifficult target to discern for the controllers who now onlycould look at the primary r adar return off the airplane. Thatwas at 8~:-20:

J\ 8:40_in our logs isythe first occasion where the, FAAis reporting a possible hija.c-Klng of American A i r l i n e s F l i g h t11. An -~4 ie__ini : tial,_j:esp6nse to us at that time was a possiblehijacking had not been confirmed. At that same moment, the F-15


12/68

by the way, much of this radar data for these primary targets

was not seen that day. I t was reconstructed days later by the84th Radar Evaluation Squadron, and other agencies like i t whoare professionals at going back and looking at radar tapes andthen given that they are loaded with knowledge after the fact,they can go and find things that perhaps were not visible duringt h e event itseLf-r - . . . . - - -^ ~ r [ )

/> ^ - vflCC JoO~V( f \\At 8:46, th e last data, n f e a r th e Trade Center,8 :46 ,

the first i m p a t e - t . on the Trade Center./ At that minute is whenthe Otis F-15s we"r-e, scrambled. An-d^ again, they were 153 milesaway. And that scramble came, and General Arnold, I am sure canaddress this , based on a conversat ion between the Nor theas tSector commander and himself . Those F-15s were airborne in s ixminu tes. That is well inside the time that is allowed for themto get airborne. But because they were on batt le s tat ions, thepilots were in the cockpits ready to start engines, thatscramble t.ime-jtfas shortened by a significant amount of t ime.

At 8:53, Chat's a minute later, in thp fadarreconstruction, we are now pick-ing' up the* D^rfmary radar contactsoff of the F-15ar out of Otis/; At 8:57,^>rnich is seven minutesaf te rx^he fir r impact is, according to bur logs when the FAAreports tHefirst impact . And about this time is when CNNcoverage to the general publicT>s~Jtifijganning to appear on the TV,not of the impact , but of the burning towers short ly thereafter.So you can see what in the mil i tary I am sure you have heard ustalk to the fog and friction of war, and as the intensityincreases the lag tends to also increase for how quicklyinformation gets passed.

9:02 -- Unite d 175, the second ai rpl ane , which by theway never turned off i ts t ransponder before impact , crashes intothe North Tower at 9:02.

P rc6

The distance of those f ighters which had been scrambledout of Ot i s , at that part icular point they were st i l l 71 milesaway, about--e-ighJ;^minutes out, an d going very fast .

_ At 9:05, FfcA reports a possible hi jack of United 175..Again*, that ' s three/ minu te s after the impact in the tower.


13/68

DM

/

same time, kiri'd of way out in the West, i s when America 77,

which in the / t i e an time has turned off its transponder and turnedleft back toward Washington, appears back in radar coverage.my understanding is the FAA controllers^now _ a r e beginning to

picjj up primary skin paints on an airplane, and they don't knowexactly whether^ that is 77, and they are asking a lot of people

A f y >whether i t i s , including a j f i a C-130 that i s westbound toward^"" Ohio/ A t 9 f c l l FAA reports a crash into the South Tower:"?ou ^> can kee now that/lag time has increased from seven minutes from

impact toreport; now it's nine minutes from impact to report,fou can. nly Ni v mag~lne what's going on on the floors of the

centers âround the country. At 9:11 I just mentioned^ /V\/O JC/UTthat 9:16, no>? FAA reports a possible hijack of United Flight9 3, \which i s Q \ x * iin the Ohio area. But that's the last flight"thatN s goojaglTcrîmpact^ the ground.

W O < L ,

r?[ f U ^ûl v* ,

^^r^- s^cc

J\ 9:24 the/FAA reports a possible hijack of 7 7 _ .gr_they had been tracking this primary

fat moment as well is when the Langley F-16si t of Langley.

That' sometime

ta[me57 And atwere sc'samb]

At 9:25. Ârfterica 77 is reported headed towardsWashington, D. C . , jxo t exactIv_j3repdrse information, just generalinformaKion acrpXs the /hat logsV^ 9:27./Boston FAA reports afifth aircjTa c rn.isjj.ng, Delta Flj\ght 9 and many people havenever heard of Delta Flight 89. We call that the first redherring of the day, because there were a number of reportedpossible hijackings that unfolded over the hours immediatelyfollowing the actual attacks. Delta 89 was not hijacked, entersthe system, increases the fog and friction if you w_iJJ w__as__webegin to look for that. But he lands about9eveff~of eightminutes later and clears out of the

At 9:30 the Langley F-16s/are airborne. they are 105miles away from the Washington area; 9:34, th roughycha tunable to precisely locate American Airlines Flight 77;16s are reported airborne. And many times, reported airbornnot exactly when they took off. It>s just when thedown that they were aijrborne. A t 9/3/""vre-Jaave the,data near the Pentagon' 1, And 9:40 ./immediately following thati s when 93 up north turns its transponders off out in the We


14/68

(

MR. ThatV

system.MR . SCOTT: I'm s o T Y T ~ ~ r Z : 41. Again, he is in theHe is kind of a red herring for us.

Now, the only th ing that I would point out on th ischart is th is says 9:43, American Air l ines 77 impacts thePentagon. The t imel ine on the impact of the Pentagon waschanged to 9:37 - - 9 :43 is the t ime that was repor ted that day,it was the t ime we used. And it took about two weeks todiscover in the parking lot of the Pentagon this entry camerafor the parking lot , which happened to be or iented towards thePentagon at the t ime of impact, and the recorded time is 9:37.And that 's why the t imeline went from 9:43 to 9:37, becauis th e best documented evidence for lie~~impact tira&-~titat wehave. Get t ing toward the end n o v y > 9:47 is wherTDelta 89 clearsth e system by landing in Cleveland. So he is not a hi jack.Lots of things are going on now i r i th"e~sys tem as the sectors

begin to cal l both uni ts that are par t of 1st Air Force andNORAD, as well as uni ts that h ave nothing to do wi th us . We arebeginning to cal l everyone now and the 103rd Ai r ControlSquadron, for instance, stationed in Connecticut, is an aircontrol squadron, a radar squadron, and they go t thei r radaronline, operational, and begin to l ink their radar picture intothe Northeast sys tem. They are not normal ly par t of NORAD.This is real ly the in i t ia l par t of a huge push the rest of thatday to l ink as many radars in on the interior as we can, and toget as many fighters on aler t as we can.

10:02 /United 93 las t radar data and the es t imatedimpact time__ fo,r-''tlnited 93 is 10:03.

0 C /~"(7 At 10:07 FAA repor ts there may be a bomb on board 93 --that ' s four minutes af ter the impact . At 10:15 they repor t thatit 's crashed. And you can see now that fog and friction lagtime has increased from seven minut es to nine minute s to 15minutes , because of the level of act iv i t ies that are going on.An d there are notat ions here about o ther a i rplanes as we beginto diver t o ther a i rplanes that are jus t out were in tended fort ra ining that day. We're picking up the phone, cal l ingSyracuse, the Air Nat ional Guard. They ' re beginning to get


15/68

event. So lots of things going on, lots of activi ties, and lots

of C2 centers . Sir, that completes my piece.

GEN. MCKINLEY: Mr. Chairman, we thought right up frontwe'd put that on the record so we can have that as a depa rturepoint for your question s. I 'd again caveat by saying that thisis the North American Aero space Defense Command and continentalNORAD region timeline. Other agencies may have other logs thatmay have different times. But this is the best and mostaccurate data that we could piece together for your Commission,s Tr ~ ! Wi t h t h at , I open up to quest ions. " *

MR. KEAN: Thank you very much. Commissioner Ben-Veniste .

MR . BEN-VENI STE: Good morning, gentlemen. First Iwould like to personally commend each of you and the dedicatedmen and women who serve our nation through NORAD. I 'd like to

explain to you what you probably know already, and that is thatou r mandate as a commission is to provide th e most detai led an daccurate exposition in our final report of what occurred leadingup to the 9/11 tragedy and the events subsequent thereto. An dso please understand that our quest ions may be very pointed. Wemean no disrespect , but we have our mission as well. Now,General McKinley, is it fair to say that th e mission and theprimary responsibility of NORAD is to defend ou r homeland an dou r citizens against air attack?

GEN. MCKINLE Y: On the day of Sept ember l l th, 2001, ourmission was to defend North America, to surveil, to intercept,to identify, and if necessary to destroy, those targets which wewere posturing were going to come from outside our country. Infact, that tracks originating over the landmass of the UnitedStates were identified friendly by origin. Therefore thosealert sites that were positioned on the morning of September . *llth were looking out primarily on our coasts at the air defense///^/identification zone, which extends outward of 100 to 200 milesof f our shore. So that was the main focus of NORAD at the time.

MR . BEN-VEN ISTE: I asked you about yourresponsibilities, sir, and I ask you again, whe the r it was not


16/68

identify tracks originating within our borders. I t was to look

outward, as a Cold War vestige, primarily developed during theCold War, to protect against Soviet long-range bomberpenetration of our intercept zone.

MR. BEN-V ENIST E: Well, I think, sir, that you haveused a good term, no t good for the United States, but accurate,in terms of the vestigial mandate operationally to look outwardtoward the borders rather than inward. And as vest igi al youmean , I am sure, as a result of our decades of confrontat ionwith the former Soviet Union.

GEN. MCKINL EY: Correct, sir.

MR. BEN-VEN ISTE: And so on the day of September l l th,as you can see these dots -- I know it may be difficult to see -- NORAD was positioned in a perim eter around the United States,bu t nothing in the central region, nothing on the border with

Canada?

GEN. MCKINLEY: That 's correct, sir.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Now, let me ask you, sir, whether theconcept of terrorists using an airplane as a weapon wassomething unknown to the intell igence community on September10th, 2001. 01

r \ . M C K I N L E Y: V

MR. BEN-VENIS TE: Thank you.

GEN. MCKINLEY: I asked our s taff to prov ide me somedata on what they had that morning. As I said, General Arnoldwas at the helm that morning. But basically the comments I >. ireceived from my staff was that there was no intelligence ^ ilom

indication at any level within NORAD or PO D of a terrorist^ ' '

threat to commercial aviation prior to the attacks. Andinformation from the daily J o i n t C h i e f s intelligence report onthe morni ng of September llth indicated no specific danger s orthreats within the country.


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GEN. MCKINL EY: I 'd l ike the intell igence community toaddress that . I would f ind i t hard to bel ieve that they hadn'tspeculated against that . But it was unavai lable to us at thet ime.

MR . BEN-VENISTE: Well , le t ' s s tar t , for example ,with September 12th, 1994, a Cessna 150L crashed into the SouthLawn of the White House, barely missing the building, andkill ing the pilot. Similarly, in December of 1994 an Alger ianarmed Islamic group of ter ror is ts h i jacked an AirFrance fl ightin Algiers and threatened to crash it into the Eiffe l Tower. InOctober of 1996, the intell igence community obtained informationregarding an Iranian plot to hijack a Japanese plane over Israeland crash it into Tel Aviv . In August of 198 f the intell igencecommunity obtained information that a group of unident i f iedArabs planned to fly an explosive- lad en plane f rom a foreigncountry into the Worl d Trade Center. The information was passed

on to the FBI and the FAA.

In September of 1998, the intell igence communityobtained inormation that Osama bin Laden's next operation couldpossibly involve flying an aircraft loaded with explosives intoa U.S. airport and detonating it . In August 2001, theintell igence community obtained information regarding a plot toeither bomb th e U.S. Embassy in Nairobi from an airplane, orcrash an airplane into it. In addi t ion, in the AtlantaOlympics, the United States government and the Department ofJustice and my colleague Jamie Gorelick were involved inplanning against possible terrorist attacks at the Olympics ,which included th e po ten t i a l of an aircraft f lying into th estadium. In July 200 . th e G-8 summit in Genoa, attended by ourpres ident , among the m e a s u r e s t h a t were taken were positioningsjarface-to-air missile ringing Genoa, closing the Genoa airportan d res t r ic t ing a l l a i rspace over Genoa.

Was not this information, sir, available to NORAD as ofSeptember llth, 2001?

GEN. MCKINLEY: It's obvious by your categor izat ionthat those events a l l took place and that NORAD had that


18/68

people in the world who can do their mission extrem ely well ,

we had not postured pr ior to September l l th, 2001, for the -scenario that took place that day.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well , obviously i t would be hard toimagine posturing for the exact scenario. Bu t isn' t it a fact ,s i r, that pr ior to September l l th , 2001, NORAD had a l ready inthe works plans to simulate in an exercise a simultaneoushijacking of two planes in the United States?

GEN. MCKINLEY: Colonel Scott, do you have any data onthat? I 'm not aware of tha t, sir. I was not present at thetime.

MR. BEN-VENI STE: That was Operat ion Amalgam Virgo.

MR. SCOTT: Yes, sir. Specifically Operat ion AmalgamVirgo, which I was involved in before I retired, was a scenario

using a Third World uni ted - - not united - - uninhabited aerialvehic le launched off a rogue f re ighter in the Gulf of Mexico.General Arnold can back me up at the t ime one of ourgreatest concerns was the prol i fera t ion of cruise missiletechnology and the abili ty for terrorist groups to get thattechnology, get i t close enough to our shores to launch it . Infact, this exercise in this exercise we used actual drone NQM-107 drones , which are about the s ize of a cruise miss i le , toexercise our fighters and our radars in a Gulf of Mexicoscenario.

you not?MR. BEN-VENIST E: You are referring to Amalgam 01, are

MR . SCOTT: Yes, s i r, Amalgam 01.

MR. BEN-VENIS TE: I am referr ing to Amalgam 02, which

was in the planning stages prior to September l l th, 2001, sir.Is that correct?

MR . SCOTT: That wa s a f t e r I re t i red, and I was notinvolv ed in 02 .


19/68

GEN. MCKINLEY: Sir, I do have some information on 02,

if you would allow me to read it for the record.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Please.

GEN. MCKINLEY: Amalgam Virgo in general, 02, was anexercise created to focus on peacetime an d contingency NORAD _m i s s i o n s . O n e o f the peacetimescenarios that is and has been aNORAD mission for years is support to other governmentdepartments. Within this mission falls hijackings. Creativityof the designer aside, prior to 9/11, hijack motivations werebased on political objectives i.e., asylum or release ofcaptured prisoners or political figures. Threats of killinghostages or crashing were left to the script writers to invokecreat iv i ty and broaden th e required response for players.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, isn't that a bi t fatuous giventhe specific information that I 've given you? It wasn't in the

minds of script writers when the Algerians had actually hijackedthe plane, which they were attempting to fly into th e EiffelTower. And all of the other scenarios which I mentioned to you.I don't mean to argue with you. But my question is, sir, giventhe awareness of the terrorists use of planes as weapons, JiojaL-J-sit that NORAD was still focusing outward protecting the UnitedStates againstattacksfrom theSovietunion or elsewhere, andwa s not better prepared to defend against the hijackingscenarios of a commercial net laden with fuel used as a weaponto target citizens of i " h , p n n i i - p H . q t - a1-ps7 When you say ourtraining was vestigial, I think you said it in capsulated form.But would you agree that on the basis of the informationavai lable that there could be, could have been betterpreparedness by NORAD to meet this threat?

GEN. MCKINLEY: In retrospect, sir, I think I wouldagree with your comment.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: With respect to the bases that wereavailable for protecting the East Coast, you and ColonelScott has gone through the scrambling of aircraft -- I wanted tofocus just on one flight, Flight 77, and then Secretary Lehmanwill ask you some more specific questions. With respect to


20/68

MR. BEN-VENIST E: Okay. He was questioned about Flight

77, and because of the use of Langley Air Base, which is 105mile s from our capital , as opposed to, say, Andrews Air ForceBase, which is in the neighborhood, th e quest ion ar ises againabout the positioning and the thought behind the positioning offighter planes to protect our capital in an enhanced terroristsituation such as existed on September 10th, September 9th,200 .

Let me ask you about Flight 77 again. The question wasthe timeline we have been given is that at 8:55 on Septemberllth American Airlines Flight 77 began turning e ast away fromits intended course, a_nd at 9:10 Flight 77 was detected by theFAA radar over West Virginia heading east. That was after thetwo planes struck the Trade Center towers. Is that correct,Colonel Scott?

MR. SCOTT: Yes, s i r.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Now, 15 minute s later, at 9:25, theFAA, not i f ied NORAD, ^according to this statement, that Flight 7 7 _was headed toward Washingt on. Was that the first notification,9": 25 , that NORAD or DOD had ' that Flight 77 was probablyhijacked ? And, if i t was, do you know why it took 15 minutesfor FAA to notify NORAD? General Eb erhardt said, "Sir, there'sone minor di fference: I saw it as 9:24, which you do as wel l ,that we were notified, and that 's the first notification wereceived." "Do you know if that was the first notification toDOD?" "Yes, sir, that 's th e first documented notification thatwe received." And I want to focus on the word "documented,"because it's very important for us to know when NORAD actual lyreceived notification, given the fact that planes had alreadycrashed into th e World Trade Center, an d given I am sure th eassumption that these were terrorist acts an d there could bemore coming, more planes coming.

Is it in fact correct, sir, that the first notificationof any type that NORA D received was not until 9:24 with respectto Flight 77?

GEN. MCKINLEY : With your concurrence, sir, I would


21/68

hi jacked ai rplane. Our focus you have got to remember thatthere's a lot of other things going on simultaneously here, wason United 93, which was being pointed out to us veryaggressively I might say by the FAA. Because our radars lookingoutward and not inward, the only way for us to know whereanything was was for the FAA to pass along that information tous. ~ * "~ ! ~~

__,_,, _^

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well , is it not the case, GeneralArnold, that there was an open line established between FAA,NORAD and other agencies, including CIA and FBI, that morning"?

GEN. ARNO LD: Well , I wasn ' t on that line a t thatpartic ular t ime if that were the case. In fact, there is anopen line established between our sectors at really the tacticallevel where they are controlling the aircraft talking to the FAAcontrollers from time to time. We did not have an open line atthat t ime with the FAA. That is not accurate.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: You did not. You were not NORADwas not in contact --

GEN. ARNOLD: The continental United States NORADregion, my headquarters, responsible for the continental UnitedStates air defense, did not have an open line with the FAA atthat t ime.

MR. BEN-V ENIS TE: Was there some NOR AD office that hadan open line with the FAA --

GEN. ARNOLD: Our

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Excuse me. Let me f inish myquestion, please. Was there some NORAD office -- and you'llforgive us because we had asked for this information prior to

the hearing from FAA and did not receive it -- but we areadvised that there was indeed an open line between either thene t or some other name given to a -- essentially an ongoingconference where under, in real t ime, FAA was providinginformation as i t received it , immediately after the first crashinto the Towers, we were told, with respect to each of the


22/68

Defense Sector at Rome, New York. Understanding therelationship of how we defend North America from threats, NORADlocated in Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, ourcontinental NORAD region, our air operations center located atTindel Air Force Base in Florida that 's where the joint forceai r component commander resides. And then we have three sectorsbased on the size an d volume of our country that handle that. I tis my understanding from talking with both FAA and oursupervisors at the Northeast Ai r Defense Sector in Rome, thatthose lines were open and that they were discussing theseissues.

MR . BEN-VENISTE: So, is it fair to say that atleast the NORAD personnel in Rome, New York, had informationavailable to it in real time once it saw -- and we were advisedthat this occurred at 9:02, which was then 22 minutes earlierthat Flight 77 first wa s observed deviating from its course,something which in the context of what was going on that day

would be quite interesting, if not remarkable? Colonel Scott,an y comment s ? -

MR. SCOTT: Sir, I think it's also important tounderstand that like the CONUS region, the FAA is also brokendown into subordinate command and control centers as well. Iknow that th e Boston center wa s talking directly to theNortheast sector. I don't believe Flight 77 was in BostonCenter's airspace. They were in Cleveland.

GEN. MCKINLEY: I think the FAA can report accuratelyon this, but I believe 77 was in Cleveland Center airspace whenit developed the problem where they lost its radar image. And Ibe l i eve -- and the FAA again can testify better to this theywould take action based on losing that identification inCleveland.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, actually I think according toth e information that we have, the first indication was not aloss of radar contact but rather a course deviation with respectto Flight 77 .

Now, I don't mean to take up any more time on this,


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GEN. MCKINLEY: Not to my knowledge.*- _ , _ ^ -

MR . BEN-VENISTE: Does FAA to your knowledge keep arecording of these crisis situations?

GEN. ARNOLD: (?) I am unaware, but I would certainlydirect that to them, please.

MR . BEN-VENISTE: To the best of your knowledge, youdon't have anything further to shed light on when you firstlearned -- you, NORAD -- first learned of Flight 77's probablehijack status prior to 9:24 a.m.?

GEN. ARNOLD: (?) I can provide that for the record. I do nothave any further knowledge at this t ime.

MR . BEN-VENISTE: We would ask that you do so.

GEN. ARNOLD: (?) Yes, sir.

MR. BEN-VE NISTE : Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will havesome other questions after.

MR. KEAN: Secretary Lehman.

MR . LEHMAN : Thank you. General, I would also l ike toecho my colleagues' expression of great admiration for you andyour predecessor, your command and your pilots, even though theymight require long runways to land.

GEN. MCKINLEY: We unders tand.

MR. LEHMAN: One of the most serious responsibili t ieswe have in addition to air security is identifying th e real

dysfunct ions in our intell igence system that contributed to thetragedy. And we had prior as you know to your testimonySecretary Mineta, who indicated despite the fact of this longlitany of events and intell igence reports of the growingprobabi l i ty that a i rcraf t would be used as weapons, nothing evergo t to him, an d nothing apparently got to you, and I assume,


24/68

of what went wrong in the way you interact wi th, your commandinteracts with the intell igence community, and why the prod uctdid not get to you. These were pret ty dramat ic events , factsand intell igence reports. I t would be very helpf ul to us tohave your assessments as a customer of the system to what wentso seriously wrong that yo u were sti l l only looking out.

There's another, an issue that I would as k perhapsGeneral Arnold to address, because there's a great deal ofunease and distress, I think understand ably, among many of the

families that somehow those aircraft should have been shot downif people had not made mis takes . And I wonder if you would justtake us thro ugh each f l ight , g iven the posture that NORAD was inat the t ime, which was nat ional pol icy and not whatever based onerroneous intell igence perhaps. But given that posture andgiven the t imes that NORAD was not i f ied of the devia t io n f rom --the possibi l i ty of h i jacking, could the a i rcraf t on a ler t forinstance at Otis have intercepted ? And then if you could also

take us t h rough 77 and 93 as well wi th the F-16s, which andif you would tell us as you take us through what the armamentwas on the F-15s and the F-16s that were scrambled against 77and 93.

GEN . ARNOLD .J Thank yo u, sir, and I will try to do that tothe best of my ability. And perhaps General McKinley has somedata that he could shed light on, because I have been re t i red alittle while, and do not have access to the staff for some ofth e very specifics on that. But I will try to do my best.

As you know from previous testimony from GeneralEberhardt to Congress , we were in the middle of a NORAD exerciseat that par t icular t ime, which means that bas ical ly our ent i restaff was focused on being able to do the air operations centermission, which was our job to do. We had just come out of avideo teleconference with th e NORAD staff and with our folks at

that par t icular t ime, when I was handed a note that we had apossible hijacking at Boston center, and it had come from th eNortheast Air Defense Command, Colonel Bob Mahr (ph) , who iscommander up there, and he had requested that I call himimmediate ly. And I was upstairs in our faci li ty, immedi atelywent downstai rs , p icked up the phone, asking on the way to my


25/68

And I also remembered as I went downsta i rs , before Ieven talked to him, that i t had been a long time since we hadhad a hijacking, but the fact that we had reviewed theprocedures of what i t i s we do for a h i jacking, because we werein the middle of an exercise . So we were pret ty wel l famil iarwith those procedures, and of course we have our own checklistthat we follow.

As I p icked up the phone, Bob told me that BostonCenter ha d called possible hijacking within the system. He h a _ d

pu t the aircraft at Otis on battle stations, wanted permissionto scramble them. I told them to c r o ahead and scramble theairplanes and we'd get permission later. And the reason fort h a t i s t h a t t h e procedure- - h i j ack i ng i sa la w enforcementissue, as is everything that takes off from within the UnitedStates. An d only la w enforcement ca n request assistance fromthe military, which they did in this particular case. The route,if you follow the book, i _s they go to the duty officer of the

national military center, who in turn makes an inquiry to NORADfo r the avai labi l i ty of f ighters , who then gets permiss ion f romsomeone representing the secretary of Defense.

Once that is approve d then we scramble aircraft . We didn'twait for that. We scrambled th e aircraf t , to ld them ge tairborne, and we would seek clearances later. I picked up thephone, cal led NORAD, whose bat t le s taff was in place because ofthe exercise, talked to the deputy commander for operat ions. Hesaid, you know, "I underst and, and we'l l call the Pentagon forthose par t icular clearances." It was simultaneous almost fo rthat decision that we made that I am looking at the TV monitoro~f the news network and see a smoking hole in what turned out tobe the North Tower of the World Trade Center, wondering. What i'sth_is? And like many of us involved in that , Does it haveanything to do with th is par t icular incident? Which we didn'tthink it did, because we were talking Boston Center, and we wereno t thinking of the immediate New York metropolitan area.

Shortly af ter that , of course ou r airplanes became airborne. Itjust so happens that Colonel Duffy, who was a pilot of thatfirst F-15, had been involved in some conversation because, astelephone calls were made, he was aware that there was ahijacking in the system. It 's kind of interesting because heconcluded that that indeed might have been that airplane

e


26/68

o

this a rerun of the f irst event? An d then it turned out to be -\th e second event. We had no warning of that whatsoever. In /)fact , that airplane wa s called possibly hi jacked later on, which ( JA-Y l " 3 *as Genera l McKin ley refer red to, as the f og and friction of war, {/ / Tactually caused further confusion, because we were not awarewhich aircraft actually crashed into the towers. We just knewthat by now we had two airplanes that have crashed into thetowers. We have two airplanes that are cal led hi jacked. Again,we are st i l l minutes away -- I think the record said eightminutes away from New York City with F-15s that are moving v ery

rapidly in that direct ion.

_ N o w we have, before I get to 77, i f i t were, we get acall o f United Flight 9 3 . " '

MR. LEHMAN: Before you go to that , I just wanted tojust make there was no possibi l i ty given t he lateness withwhich you were notif ied from FAA of a possible hi jacking that

those airplanes in full af ter burner f lying supersonic couldhave gotten there in t ime to intercept ei ther of those twoflights. Is that correct?

GEN. ARNOLD: That 's correct . That 's correct . Thefirst aircraft , of course, American 11, crashed before ourinterceptors were airborne. We ordered the scramble almostsimultaneously; our records show the same minute. I'm not evensure which occurred f irst , but i t was almost s imultaneous thatwe ordered the scramble of the aircraft , and the impact into theNorth Tower had occurred. And so by the t ime even the pi lotaccelerat ing to 1.5 mach, moving pret ty fast , was st i l l eightminutes out by the t ime the second aircraft had crashed into thetower. And though when the second aircraft crashed into thetower, by now, you know, I think Secretary Mineta said, thisbecomes a pattern certainly. I would l ike to tel l you that Iwas absolutely certain at that t ime that we were under an

at tack, but I was not abso lutely cer tain we were under at tac k atthat part icular t ime. But we knew that this pat tern had to bedealt with at that part icular t ime. And then very short lythereaf te r we got a call from on the United 93 fl ight being apossible hi jacking. And that aircraft , as you -- well , I don' tknow if you know, but it~wanderecT around. That aircraft


27/68

someplace in the United States?not know.

That place of course, we would

In the Northeast a t this par t icular t ime we had noother a i rcraf t avai lable . The aircraf t out of Otis had takenoff. We looked at aircraft t hat were returning from a Michi gan,an Air Michigan Nat ional Guard aircraf t re turning from therange, because at one t ime we thought e i ther the Del ta f l ight orthe United 93 might pose a threat to Detroi t . We t r ied to getairplanes a i rborne out of the Toledo Air Nat ional Guard at that

par t icular time. Can you get anything airborne? Because wehave this United 93 and this Del ta . We need to intercept i t andsee what is going on with those par t icular a i rcraf t .

Syracuse, New York Air National Guard uni t - - weinquired with them, their abi l i ty to get airborne, andul t imately they did somewhat la ter at that par t icular t ime.

And so in the record you see the t ime when we werenot i f ied of the American Fl ight 77 as being a possible hi jack.And I can te l l you that I did not know, and I don' t b e l i e v eanybody in the NORAD system, knew where that a i rplane was . Wewere advised i t was possibly hi jacked. And we had launchedalmost s imultaneously with that , we launched the aircraf t out ofLangley to put them over top of Washington, D.C. , not inresponse to American Air l ine 77, but really to put them inpositio n in case United 93 were to head that way. They were theclosest f ighters we had, and we s tar ted vector ing them to movetowards the Washington, D.C. area, to

< T t > /O 9 [ MR. LEHMAN: Did they also go into burner?

GEN. ARNOLD: No, sir.

GEN. MCKINLEY: Sir, they, based on their

configurat ion, t raveled at .98 Mach, roughly 575 knots, 660miles per hour, about 10 naut ica l mi les per minute .

MR. LEHMAN: If they had gone into burner, could theyhave got ten the re in t ime to get 77?

_Y

*" *

> A J^"~


28/68

MR. LEHMAN: Why did they head out to sea first?

GEN. ARNOLD: Ou r standard -- we have agreements withthe FAA, and by the way we are looking outward. This is anadvantage to us, and so we'd have agreements for clearance.When we scramble an aircraft , there is a line that is picked up,an d the FAA and everyone is on that line. And the aircraft takeoff and they have ^.^-predetermined departure route. And ofcourse, i t 's rf&t over water, because our mission, unlike lawenforcement 's mission, is to protect things coming towards the

United States. And I might even add in all of our terroristscenarios that we run, the aircraft , if we were to interceptaircraft , i t is usually always from outside the United Statescoming towards us .

So our peacetime procedures, to de-conflict with civilaviation's, so as to not have endanger civil aviation in anypar t icular way.

GEN. MCKINLEY: Secretary Lehman, also i f I may add,th e complexity of the air traffic over th e Northeast corridor isso complex that to just launch fighters, as you know, sir, fromyour background, into that air traffic system can causepotential damage or midair collision. So we rely on the FAA tode-conflict tho se corridors. And that is another reason why itvectored east originally.

MR. LEHMAN: Th e armament on the F-15s and the F-16swas?

GEN. ARNOLD: The armament, as I recall, and GeneralMcKinley ca n correct me on that, we had full-up armament on allthose aircraft with both radar and heat-seeking missiles as wellas guns .

GEN. MCKINLEY: AIM -7, -8, -9.

MR. LEHMAN: So, to continue with 77, it 's fair to sayif you had got a more t imely notification from FAA, andparticularly with regard to where i t was heading, that those F-16s launched from Langley could possibly have gotten there


29/68

bein g relayed from the FAA. We had no visibili ty on thoseaircraft -- couldn't see, we had no radars, couldn't talk to ourpilots." FAA did a marvelous jo b during that period of time indoing radio relays and assisting us with being able to controlthem.

MR . LEHMAN: Now, had 93 not crashed, would it not havebeen possible for the F-16s to have in tercepted 93, and do youthink they would have?

GEN. ARN OLD: It was our intent to intercept UnitedFlight 93. And in fact my own staff, we were orbiting now overWashington, D.C. by this time, and I was personally anxious tosee what 93 was going to do, and our intent was to intercept it .But we decided to stay over Washington, D.C., because there wasnot that urgency. And if there were other aircra ft coming fromanother quadrant, another vector, we would have been pulled offstation, and we would not have been able to -- there might have

been an aircraft that popped up within the system closer thatwould have posed a larger threat to the Washington, D.C. area.So we elected to remain over D.C. until that aircraft wasdefinitely coming towards us. And, as you know, the brave menand women wh o took over that aircraft prevented us from makingth e awful decision which th e young men that were flying thoseaircraft would have lived with for the rest of their l ives ifthey had to do that.

MR. LEHMAN: In a short answer, why with the previousat tempt of a l ight plane to hit the White House, wasn't AndrewsAir Force Base with F-16s and Marine F-18s available, part ofthe alert? And I understand, and I'd also like to have youcomment on what the role of the Secret Service was in scramblingthose F-16s.

GEN. ARNOLD: Are you talking about scrambling the --

MR. LEHMAN: Andrews

GEN. ARNOLD : The Andrews airplanes. It is myunderstanding that the Secret Service obviously they workwith the 113th, because the pr esi den t 's Air Force One is located


30/68

time and asked them to get anything they could airborne, and _I think the quote was "to protect the House." _--./2/-u*rO-/'X

G E N . MCKINLEY: And the 113th is the 113th Fighter Wing ' ~ "

at Andrews, th e District of Columbia Ai r National Guard F-16Wing.

G E N . ARNOLD: And not part of NORAD.

MR. LEHMAN: Now, you said that the clear delineation

was you were looking outward, and to do anything inward you hadto get authorization from a law enforcement agency. And that iscovered, as I understand it, by J T. f i i n . ^ i - . T- n r . i - i nn ? f i i n nn aircraft^piracy. In that instruction, as I read it , which I believe is

"still in effect --

G E N . MCKINLEY: That's correct, sir.

MR. LEHMAN: -- you don't have any delegated authorityto interdict. In fact, there is no mention of interdiction, andC/ 3

z S p f

it's purely an escort function. This is still in effect. Now, / /presumably you are not following it to the letter, and I would ~> O/ 0like you to speak to what the chain of command is now. Who hasauthority to interdict, to shoot down, where is it delegated,and lare there published rules o~f engagement as to what criteriaapply~~~to make that decision 1.'

GEN. MCKINLEY: Sir, I'd be happy to answer that, and Ithank General Arnold for the comments about the actual data. Iappreciate him being here today. Quite frankly, sir, sinceSeptember l l th, 2001, the Department of Defense, United StatesAir Force has put a lot of resources into what we call OperationNoble Eagle. As President Bush said, it's the second front onthe war on terrorism. And, as I said in my opening remarks, wehave flown 30,000 sorties. In fact overhead today here our

Noble Eagle pilots are flying, in addition to being supplantedwith ground-based ai r defense artillery.

A lot of effort has gone into taking a look at thethings that were not done right prior to prepare ourselves forthe aftermath. And it is an honor for me to represent the men


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Western Air Defense sectors had visibility internally now. An dthat has been completed. In addition to seeing internally to theUnited States, we must be able to communicate to the pilots whofly our interceptor missions, so we can have clear lines ofcontrol back to our command element , General Eberhart , inColorado Springs.

MR. LEHM AN: Just to interrupt now, on the radarvisibi l i ty, are you dependent on the FAA radars, which can havevery littl e capability in a non-transponder environme nt, or can

you, do you have the better air defense radar?

GEN. MCKINLEY: Sir, we try to put the best radars ineffect for the mission. Most of those are FAA radars . Most ofthem are old radars , but they 've been maintained proper ly, andwe are actually putting Department of Defense people out to makesure those radars are calibrat ed for our mission. So ther efor ewe are using their radars. We are using air control squadrons,both act ive duty Guard and Re serve , to supplement those. We infact use the United States Navy every chance we can, becausetheir Aegis cruisers are so capable that we link their picturesinto ou r a i r _ c o m b a t command center at Tindel. So we are doingthe absolute best job with the resources we have been given tomake sure that internal picture now is transparent to our airbattle manager s, so that military controllers, when asked now,can pinpoint immediately an aircraft in distress, that we canfind the neare st suitable fighter location, which I can say is

substantial today. In open testimony I would not like to gointo the details of the numbers of alert facilities, but it goesup and down depending on the threat. It is internal now to theUnited States, which it wasn't on the l l th of September.

So this capacity, this Operation Noble Eagle, whichgives the milit ary far more respo nsibility and latitude to dothis mission now, has allowed us to be far more capable. And we

have been involved in ever y air l ine incident that we have beenasked to perform with, with the Federal Aviat ion Administr at ionsubsequent to 9/11, whe ther ther e be a disturbance onboard,whether it be an aircraf t emergency, whether i t be to pro tec tcritical infrastructure, our major population centers. We arethe re .


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GEN. ARNOLD: A lot of discussion on that. Our intenton United 93 -- the simple answer is, to my knowledge, I did nothave authority to shoot that aircraft down. We were informedafter the airplan e had already hit the ground. That 's thesimple answer.

MS. GORELICK: I 'm sorry, could you say that again?You were informed of what after it hit the ground?

GEN. ARNOL D: We were informed of presidential

authori ty some five minutes after that aircraft had hit theground, according to our records.

MR . LEHMAN: So you were given it after the fact,presidential authority to shoot it down?

GEN. ARNOL D: To my knowledge. Now, I can tell you thatin_our discussion with the NORAD staff at that particular timethat we -- you know, we intended to intercept that aircraft atsome point in time, attempted to deviate that aircraft away fromth e Washingt on, D.C. area. There was discussion at thatparticular time whether or not that aircraft would be shot down.But we, I did not know of presidential shoot down authorityuntil after that aircraft had crashed.

MR. LEHMAN: Mmm-hmm. And, General McKinley, could youtake us to the present and where those authorities lie now?

GEN. MCKINLE Y: Yes, sir. Subsequent to 9/11, thepresident delegated to the secretary of Defense, delegated tothe combatant commander at NORAD, and now United States NorthernCommand, has the authority to declare a hostile target. Ourfighter interceptor s will be in position to accept that hostiledeclaration, and the clearance authorities will be passed up toth e highes t authority. We have improved our communications

equipment. We have secure telephones that allow us to contactimmediately the powers in the chain of command. And I, as thejoint force air component commander, have delegated emergencyauthority in the very rare occasion where a telephone fails orwe cannot get authority, and under emergency powers can exercisethat author ity. So the clearances now are in place. General


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MR . LEHMA N: Thank you. As you know, our rules ofengagement are many V-l , so I will take rest and let mycolleagues go at you.

MR . KEAN: Commissioner Ben-Veniste .

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Followingup on this shootdown authority, General Arnold, from what source

did you receive the shootdown authority?

GEN. ARNOLD: I did not receive shootdown autho rity.

MR . BEN-VENIST E: You say it was received subsequent tothe crash of 93?

GEN. ARNOLD: Yes, that 's correct.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: From what source was that received?

GEN. ARNOLD: It was passed down to us from the NORAD,from Cheyenne Mountain, that they had received shootdownauthority. And then, you know, the timeframe escapes me at themoment, but you know for example over the Washington, D.C. areait was declared a no-fly zone by clear -- just by the fact that / ^ f - ian y aircraft was present, if we could no t determine if that / r \

aircraft was friendly, then we were cleared to shoot that _ , jjft^-uyuTaircraft down. ^^ J

MR. BEN-VENISTE: When was the declarat ion of no-flyzone authorized?

GEN. ARNOLD: I don't know. It was shortly during thatt imeframe.

MR. BEN-V ENISTE: So are you saying that thatdeclaration gave you shootdown authority?

GEN. ARNOL D: It gave us -- that particular declara tionthat I am referring to is a class bravo airspace within the


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determine that this was a f r iendly aircraf t , which under thecircumstances I suppose means under the control of theterror is ts a t that t ime making i t an unfr iendly aircraf t , thatyou had au thor i ty

GEN. ARNOLD: That's correct.

MR . BEN-VENISTE: -- by whatever means to bring thatdown?

GEN. ARNOLD: Yes. The

MR. BEN-VENISTE: At what t ime during this process wasthat order issued, and who issued it?

GEN. ARNOL D: I do not know who issued it . It is myunderstanding i t was issued by the president , or the vicepreside nt in his s tead, that that order was issued. And i t wasissued around the t ime that we decided to put a l l the a i rcraf ton the ground, as Secretary Mineta had referred to , a t thatpar t icular t ime. So --

MR. BEN-VE NISTE: We would ask you to supplement yourtest imony today with specif ic information about that . At whatpo in t was, to the best of your knowledge, any order receivedfrom ei ther the president or the vice president of the UnitedStates with respect to act ion to be taken by the mil i tary in

connect ion with the ongoing s i tuat ion ?

GEN. ARNOLD: I t was my understanding that thatoccurred, the direct communicat ion, to me. I can ' t answer i f i twas done at a higher level at some point in time around fiveminutes after the United 93 had crashed into Pennsy lvan ia .

MR. BEN-VENIS TE: And so you wil l be able to check the

records of NORAD ge nerally , or the DOD generally, to find outwhen a president ia l direct ive was issued?

GEN. ARNOLD: I am sure General McKinley wil l do thatfo r m e .


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GEN. ARNOLD: We developed a certain -- I guess theshort answer again, that is correct. But it's very specificallyin the Washington, D.C. area by presence that aircraft washostile unless we could determine it was friendly.

CX"-\S*-w r \ .

revisit Flight 77, because as we understand it , tragically, it "Tr _ . fappears that that was the only plane which reached its intended ~ ' '

target which might have been interdicted that day, if everything

ha d gone right. Are you in agreement with that?

GEN. ARNOLD: I think, from a physics perspective, yes.

MR . BEN-VENISTE: Let's go beyond physics for a moment,and let me ask you about the planes which were scrambled fromAndrews Air Force Base.

MR. : Langley.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: No, from Andrews Air Force Base bythe Secret Service of the United States. Wh o gave the order toscramble jets -- F-16s also, I believe -- out of Andrews?

GEN. ARNOLD: It's my understanding that the Secret Servicerequested that they launch anything they could to get themairborne.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Of whom did they make that request?

GEN. ARNOLD: I'm not sure if it's General Dave Worley(ph), and I think they actually talked to him. And I did notknow this at time of course, but they called him up and said,What do you have that you can get airborne? He had someairplanes returning from the range on training mission.

MR . BEN-VENISTE: What would be the flight time fromAndrews Air Force Base of two F-16s to the Pentagon?

GEN. ARNOLD: From the time they were notified?


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didn't have any airplan es immediately ready to go, it could havetaken them 20, 30 minutes .

MR . BEN-VENISTE: And under th e circumstances --

GEN. ARNOLD: They already had airplanes airborne. Bythe time those airplanes were airborne we had airplanes overWashington, D.C.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Right . Now if the order had been

given to Andrews, even simultaneously with the order that yougave to scramble your planes, is it not fair to say that thoseplanes would have reached the Pentagon sooner?

GEN. ARNOLD: They might have, but they would have beenunarmed.

GEN. MCKIN LEY: Sir, what would be my comment, sir, isthose aircraft are not prepped or built up for that mission.

MR. BEN-V ENIST E: And in fact we have received reportsthat are almost incredible in terms of the bravery of the twopilots who went up that day in unarmed a ircraft wit h themiss ion, I presume authorized somewhere in the executive, to usetheir airplanes to bring down Flight 77 or 93 if they couldinterdict them. That means to clip their wings, crash intothem, perhaps the pilots at the risk of their own lives. Is

that correct?

GEN. MCKINLEY: Sir, as I evacuated the Pentagon thatmorning, as I came out the river entrance and looked up,virtually simultaneously those F-16s coming back from the rangehad been airborne, had dropped their weapons, were returning lowon fuel -- were visible to 10 to 15,000 people, and it was avery heartening sight to see United States Air Force fighters

overhead the Pentagon. And it is my understanding from thereview of the records that that was their guidance.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: And who provided that guidance tothem? Was that a decision made internally by Secret Service, ordid Secret Service require higher executive order in order to


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MR. BEN-VENISTE: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much,gentlemen.

GEN. MCKINLEY: Thank you.

MR . KEAN: One question. Suppose for a minute thatthis weekend, God forbid, that some terrorists got on boardanother plane in Boston and headed for New York. What would bedifferent?

GEN. MCKINLEY: Sir, I am very proud to say that Ithink the interagency process has worked very, very well. TheTransportation Security Administration, under the direction ofSecretary Ridge, has implemented stringent procedures on theground. Let's face it: solving this problem before thete r ror is ts get on the airplane, I think, is the most criticalstep to protecting commercial aviation, because once theairplane is in the air, then it resolves back to the Departmentof Defense to take the appropriate action. So TSA deserves agreat deal of credit. The Federal Aviation Administration, withtheir procedures, and they way they are lashed up with us nowan d the military, and the formation of the Northern Command, Ithink is vitally important to the security of the United Statesof America. I think those things in context make it far lesslikely for this to happen. But, as my boss says, we are not 100percent safe. We can never be 100 percent safe. I take nothingfor granted when I am in our air operations center when any

aircraft fails to communicate or fails to make a turn or failsto do what its flight plan said it was supposed to. So we arevery, very serious today about what's happening in the skiesover America.

MR. KEAN: But if it were able to get into th e air,headed for New York, what procedures exist now that didn't existthen? Would you be able to intercept them?

GEN. MCKINLEY: It's my understanding and firm beliefthat the Federal Aviation Administration would immediatelynotify us at the first sign of any impropriety, in any aircraft,whether it's commercial, cargo or civilian. We wouldimmediately take action to get our fighters airborne from the


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15 s out of Otis would be immediately scrambled, they wouldimmediately intercept the aircraft , and we would stand by forfurther authorit ies from those above us.

GEN. ARNOLD: And I want to just point ou t that if thequestion was if i t were to happen today, you have airborneinterceptors that would be vectored into that aircraft tointercept .

MR. KEAN: Commissioner Hamilton?

/ /V.

MR. HAM ILTON : I just want to clarify a few thingsafter l istening to all this testimony. It 's not all that clearto me. As of September l l th, only the president had theauthority to order a shootdown of a commercial aircraft .

GEN. ARNOLD: That 's correct, sir.

MR. HAMILTON: And today who has the authority?

GEN. MCKINLEY: We see the pres ident delegated to thesecretary of Defense, delegated to the combatant commander ofNorthern Command and the North American Aerospace Command, andthere ar e emergency authorit ies if that fails.

MR. HAMILTON: So you h a v e the authority?

GEN. MCKINLE Y: Yes, sir, and others.

MR. HAMILTON: And how many others?

GEN. MCKINLEY: I prefer not to say in this forum, sir,bu t I can provide it for the record.

MR. HAMILTON : And you do not have to go up the chain

of command at all in the event of a --

GEN. MCKINLEY: We certainly will try, we will makeeve ry effort to try.

MR. HAMILTON : I 'm sure you would. But you don't have


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MR. HAMILTON: Now, one of the things tha t ' s curious tome, General Arnold, you said that you did not learn of thepresident ia l order unt i l af ter United 93 had a l ready c rashed .That wa s about a l i t t le af ter 10 o'clock in the morning. Th efirst notice of diff icul ty here was at 8:20 in the morning whena t ransponder goes off on the American Fl ight 11. I don' t knowhow signif icant that is , but 20 minutes la ter you hadnot i f icat ion of the possible hi jack. So there 's a long lapse oft ime here between the t ime you are ini t ia l ly a ler ted and youreceive the order that you can shoot that a i rcraf t down. Am I

right about tha t?

GEN. ARNOLD: That ' s correct .

MR. HAMILTO N: In your timelin e, why don't you put inthere when you were not i f ied?

GEN. ARNOLD: Of which flight, sir?

MR. HAMILTON: Get t ing the not i f icat ion from the presidentof the United States that you had the authori ty to shoot acommercial a i rcraf t down is a pret ty s ignif icant even t . Whywould that not be in your t imel ine?

GEN. ARNOLD: I don' t know when that happened. rf \

notice before?

GEN. ARNOLD: Not to my knowledge.

MR. HAMILTON: So this is the first t ime in the historyof the country that such an order had ever been given, so far asyo u know?

GEN. ARNOLD: Yes, sir. I 'm sure there 's a log thatwould tell us that , and I appreciate the question. } f ) ' * 3 /

MR. HAMILTON: Ma ybe you could let us know tha t .

And then, f inal ly, as I understand your tes t imony, i t


40/68

par t icular point , I don't think that we would have shot thataircraft down.

MR. HAMILTON: Because?

GEN. ARNOLD: Well , we had not been given author ity

MR. HAMILTON: Yo u didn't have authority at that point.

GEN. ARNO LD: And, you know, it is thro ugh hindsi ght

that we are certain that this was a coordinated a t tack on theUnited States.

MR. LEHMAN: But had you got ten not i f ied ear l ier, 77'sdeviance, about when it turned east, for instance, certainly youcould have gotten th e F-16s there, an d certainly there wouldhave been t ime to communicate to either get or deny authority,no? -- for 77?

GEN. ARNOLD: I bel ieve that to be true. I bel ievethat to be true. That had happened very fast , but I bel ievethat to be true.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: What effor ts were made that day tocontact the pres ident to seek that authority?

GEN. ARNOL D: I do not know.

MR. BEN- VENIST E: Who would have been in the chain ofcommand seeking authority from the pres ident w i th whom anyone atNORAD was communicating? GEN. ARNOL D: Can you answer that?

GEN. MCKINLEY: The command director in CheyenneMountain is connected with th e combatant commander who wouldhave had the telephone lines open at that point. But I don'thave knowledge of what happened that day. But that would be theway it would be done.

GEN. ARNOLD: The flow would be through the secretaryof Defense o bvious ly, and to --


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MR. BEN-V ENISTE : Now, in terms of anything you knowtoday looking backwards, including all the after-action reportsand various studies which I am sure have been conductedinternally, and I am sure which we will wish to review, can younot te l l us whether there was any effor t made to contact thepres ident to seek author i ty in deal ing wi th what appeare d to bea coordinated a t tack?

GEN. MCK INLEY : I don't have knowledge at this t ime tomake a comment, sir.

GEN. ARNOLD: I don't have knowledge of that. Ou ractions were to try to get aircraft in position to intercept ifnecessary.

MR. BEN-VENIS TE: Now, jus t going back, because now I 'mconfused by on the one hand your statement that the closing of V

/the airspace over Washington provided de facto author i ty to take ywhatever measures were necessary to deal wi th host i le a i rcraf t , r

-and your statement that we probably would no t have shot down 77if we had arrived in t ime.

fiuL-GEN. MCKINLEY: Th e airspace had not been shut down LX>

over Washington, D.C. at that t ime.

MR. BEN-VE NIST E: But what t ime was that? Is that onthe timeline?

GEN. MCKINLEY: I believe it is . I believe it wasreported by Secretary Mineta ,the t imeline that that occurred.

MR. BEN-VENI STE: It 's not on your t imeline?

MR. SCOTT: No, sir, it 's not.

MR. BEN -VENIST E: But do you know what t ime that was?

MR . SCOTT: Sir, th e only thing I've seen is we have acopy provided by General Worley (ph) of an Andrews towe rt ransmiss ion that announced to a l l avia t ion t raff ic that theClass B airspace was closed and that air traffic that did not

/


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/MR . SCOTT: Sir, we'd have to go to the tower logs. We can

ge t that for you. The tower log will show us what t ime that

transmission was made. I don't know what t ime it was made.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: And on whose order was that direct ivegiven, that any plane in this sector would be shot down?

MR. SCOTT: Unknown to me, sir.

MR. LEHMAN: Would you be able to provid e that to the

best of your ab ili t ies to --

GEN. MCKINLEY: We' l l do everything we can to providethat for the record, sir.

MR. LEHMAN: From highe r authority as well , so we cange t on the record the chain of command during that period.

I have on e last question on 175. It never turned it stransponder off, and apparently you were nev er notified that i twas a possible hijacking. Was that because it continued tocommunicate with ATC? Or did it deviate from it s course?

GEN. ARNOLD: I can't tell you why we weren't notified.You'd have to ask the FAA. But that aircr aft was a very, as Iunderstand i t , a fairly short fl ight, and we were not notified.I can't tell yo u why.

MR. KEAN: Commissioner Gorelick ?

MS. GORELICK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I 'd actual lylike to follow up on some of your questions about the respectiveroles of NORA D, Northern Command, the Defense Departme ntgenerally vis-a-vis la w enforcement. As Commissioner Ben-Venis te aver ted to , when I was a t the Just ice Depar tment and wewere planning for the Atlanta Olympics, we rehearsed a number ofscenarios with the Defense Depar tment and the various componentsthereof who were responsible for providing support to theOlympics. And when we got to the scenario of a domestichijack ing of a plane headed into a stadium, and I asked whatthey thoug ht the proper division of labor should be, I was told,


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your job in defending the United States or wait for someone fromth e FBI to call you, you decided to get the authority later,

because that is the only rational response. It probably couldhave gotten you court-martialed. But one appreci ates that sortof leadersh ip. I say this because it is clear that befo reSeptember llth we know that the Defense D epart ment discussedfor decades what the approp riate role of our mili tary shouldbe in defending the domest ic Uni ted Sta tes . This was not a newquestion. It was discussed up and down an d across. And I seeGeneral McKinley nodding. Anyone who has been in the service

for the period of time that you gentlemen have been, know that.And clearly September llth served, if anything else, if nothingelse, to b r e a k th e resistance that had occurred to having adifferent view of what the appropriate role of the militaryshould be.

So with that background , I would like to be very clearas to what has changed and what has not. As I unders tand i t ,the requirement of pr ior law enforcement requests has beenel iminated. Is that correct?

GEN. MCKINLEY: We are able under Operation NobleEagle, which we are under presently, to respond to an event as amilitar y entity to be in positi on to suppor t. As you saideloquently, we don't have t ime to wait anymore to launch ou rfighters. So we have to take proactive action to do that.

MS. GORELICK: Thank you for that. Second of all , yourradars are now, as you put it, are pointed inward as well. Isthat correct?

GEN. MCKINLEY: We have incorporated the radars thatwere there all along so that our military controllers can nowsee them, see those tracks of interest .

MS. GORELIC K: You remain reliant to a certain extenton the efficacy of the FAA's radar system, as Secretary Lehmanpointed out . Are you complete ly comfortable that they are morethan adequate to your mission?

GEN. MCKINLE Y: Ma'am, you are absolutely right, we are


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2

with the FAA have identified some disconnects and programmatics ,and senior leadership is aware of those disconnects. We want to

make sure that the radars last so that this mission can be doneproperly and effectively.

MS. GORELICK: I would ask you to supply for therecord, if you could, a statement of what would be necessary inth e professional opinion of you and your colleagues, to bringth e FAA

t8 b5 j azzarello notes on may 23 hearing fdr- comments on transcript and handrwitten notes212

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